What are Agile Transformation Services?

Agile transformation services are a collection of services created and provided by an agile transformation company who employs or partners with a team of experts, agile transformation consultants who will collaborate with an organization to create a customized agile transformation program.

Typical agile transformation services include:

Assessments of the current state of an organization

Roadmap and vision creation

Creation and launch of the agile transformation program

Identification of valuable of metrics

Assisting in establishing internal agile advocates

Change management

Engagement with an agile consultant who will provide on-going support and mentorship

Delivery of these services and creation of the agile transformation program will be the main responsibility of the agile transformation consultant.

This individual is a professional who has expertise in various agile methods and has experience in creating and leading customized agile transformation programs and solutions for various sized organizations. They are considered advocates and experts of the Agile Manifesto and adhere to those values and principles.

An agile transformation for any size or type of company will be met with some resistance and there will be unique challenges. Partnering with an agile transformation company will ensure that there is a remedy and support for growing pains and the avoidance of common pitfalls.

What is the Agile Transformation Program?

An agile transformation program, created by the agile consultant in collaboration with the organization, will bundle the services, frameworks, agile practices, plan of execution among other items that will become the organization’s unique formula for its agile transformation.

A key ingredient to the program will be the type of “Agile” an organization wishes to implement whether it be Lean, XP, Scrum, Kanban, Test Driven Development (TDD), Feature Driven Development (FDD), Pair Programming or a combination of several frameworks and the proper timeline in which to introduce that framework. It also could include waterfall elements, if those methods are appropriate for the type of organization.

Transformation requires a unique strategy created for the organization that will be transformed to one that is self-sufficient, self-organizing and that has a high-performing culture that fosters and encourages collaboration and transparent communication.

To create a clear, solid path towards a successful agile transformation, it is critical to engage the expertise of a company who understands the specific challenges IT organizations will face when embarking upon their agile journey.

Agile Transformation Services: The Journey to Agility

Agile transformation can be a very complex and challenging endeavor and it cannot be achieved simply by applying best practices or knowledge obtained from books and other resources.

Many organizations will experience frustration with not being able to master agile quickly and will abandon efforts versus instead of remaining fully dedicated to the agile transformation program.

The journey will require that software delivery teams, who may be comfortable working in silos, learn to participate and excel in cross-collaborative environments.

Executives and leaders must encourage transparent communication, allow team level accountability and self-organization along with supporting a cultural change that will allow the values and principles from the Agile Manifesto become part of the company’s culture.

There must be a tremendous amount of patience exercised by all levels of the organization as learning something new will produce failures as teams learn to adjust to this new way of working and behaving.

However, through continuous inspection and improvements of the processes, improvements will begin to emerge. Trust will form between business units and an organization will begin to thrive in an agile environment.

Agile Transformation Services: Recognizing the Value

While transformation can be challenging, the ultimate reward of this investment is the result of higher customer satisfaction through continuous delivery of value-based, quality software.

Agile teaches organizations to build the right software at the right time. Positive outcomes such as improved teamwork, better communication and other non-tangible benefits are difficult to measure. However, outcomes such as a reduction of risk and defects, technical debt, defects and development costs are measurable factors.

It’s important to quantify and utilize these metrics before and during your agile transformation. Review of these metrics will help drive sound decisions and provide better insights to performances of teams.

How CAST Can Help

CAST provides measurement to organizations undergoing agile transformations. These metrics are
reported through a set of audience-tailored dashboards that provide visibility for managing complex
transformation initiatives.

Establish a baseline for measuring quality and productivity of application development process
prior to agile transformation. The baseline creates factual understanding of the existing state of
development process, teams and output to serve as the benchmark for improvement.

Baseline the key applications along the most important application health parameters to ensure
they don’t deteriorate over the life of the agile transformation. This protects critical systems
during transformation process.

Govern and manage risk and quality based on established management criteria and metrics.

Support continuous improvement through automated, sustainable measurement of application
development process output.

Measure quality and productivity of development process post agile transformation to document
improvement and serve as the basis of return on investment.